On 12th January 2018, Inminds human rights group will hold a vigil to demand freedom for Palestinian child prisoners caged by the illegal Israeli occupation.

Last year 1,467 Palestinian children were abducted and caged by Israel, that's one Palestinian child taken from their family every 6 hours. Twice as many children were abducted by occupation forces during 2 weeks in December than in the whole of the previous month. This surge in the targetting of children by Israel is alarmingly, as is the brutality of the arrests. Currently there are over 359 Palestinian children suffering in Israeli dungeons.

Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "In a quote attributed to Ben Gurion, he predicts that the colonization of Palestine by Zionist Europeans will not be a problem as the Palestinian old will die and the young will forget. Well 70 years later, what Israel has found is that each new generation of Palestinians is more firmly rooted in Palestine than the previous one. The youth refuse to submit to the occupation. In that determined refusal by children to submit lies the seeds of their freedom, the seeds to end the apartheid state. It is for this reason that they are targetted by the full might of the apartheid state. If they don't submit then they must be annihilated or otherwise rot in a dungeon. Such a cold blooded policy of targetting the children is a sign of desperation and fear of the inevitable."

Asala & Manar Abu Ryyan

Occupation soldiers stopped a Red Cross ambulance carrying two injured young girls, 15 years old Asala and her cousin Manar Abu Rayyan, on their way to hospital after Asala was shot in the hand by Israeli soldiers. The soldiers dragged the girls out and beat them. Asala's hijab was ripped off her head and her head was slammed against the jeep. The whole brutal episode was captured on video. Parts of the soldiers rifle, the sniper scope and stand, were later found in the ambulance, having broken off during the violent beating. The abducted girls were taken to the police station in the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba where they were tortured. They were hit on their heads and insulted and put in a freezing cold container which was open at the bottom.

Ahed Tamimi

16 years old Ahed Tamimi in military court

16 years old prominent activist Ahed Tamimi was arrested after video of her courageously standing up to armed soldiers, who had less than an hour earlier shot her 14 years old cousin, Mohammed Tamimi, in the head at close range, went viral. Mohammed, in critical condition, had to be put in a medically induced coma for several days before seven surgeons operated on him for six hours to save his life. After the video went viral, armed soldiers raided the Tamimi house in the early hours of the morning and abducted Ahed. When her mother Nariman went to the police station to support her daughter she too was arrested. Both mother and daughter are caged at Israel's notorious HaSharon prison facing multiple charges of resisting the occupation. Ahed's next military court date is on Monday 15th January 2018.

14 years old Mohammed Tamimi shot in the head at close range by Israeli occupation soldiers

Ahed Tamimi

Fawzi al-Juneidi

Two dozen Israeli soldiers ambushed 16-years-old Fawzi al-Juneidi whilst he was shopping for groceries. Due to his fathers injury and his mothers terminal illness, Fawzi is the bread earner in his family. He was severely beaten during arrest and tortured during interrogation. Photos of his arrest, blindfolded, disoriented, with torn jeans, surrounded by over 25 armed occupation troops wearing armour padding has gone viral. He was beaten with rifles by almost every soldier who took part in his ambush. During interrogation, at one point he hide under the desk in the detention centre for cover, but they pulled him back up and continued to excessively hit him. They then threw him into a tub filled with cold water and took his shoes off and stamped on his legs. He was so badly beaten one of his upper ribs moved 3cm out of place after repeatedly being struck with a rifle. The soldiers also dislocated his shoulder. His whole body was covered in bruises. Despite his obvious suffering he was left bound, on a concrete floor for four hours and was only taken to a hospital after 4 days of interrogation at the order of a judge. Even in hospital the interrogation continued with the soldiers threatening him if he didn't confess. With his condition rapidly deteriorating, he was finally given bail 14 days later, on ransom of 10000 shekels. As soon as he was released he was rushed to hospital. But he has to appear in court next Thursday, 18th January 2018, on charges of throwing a stone. A charge that carries a 20 year sentence.

16 years old Fawzi al-Juneidi

Torture of Children

Torturing of children is routine for Israel. 75% of Palestinian children detained by Israel are physically tortured. Figures for Jerusalem show that 40% of the children were sexually abused by Israeli soldiers during arrest or interrogation.

The United Nations "Rights Of The Child" report 4th July 2013 documents the brutal torture of Palestinian children as standard practice during interrogations in order to coerce confessions. It states that children are “systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture.. physical and verbal violence, humiliation, painful restraints, hooding of the head and face in a sack, threatened with death, physical violence, and sexual assault against themselves or members of their family, restricted access to toilet, food and water. These crimes are perpetrated from the time of arrest, during transfer and interrogation, to obtain a confession but also on an arbitrary basis as testified by several Israeli soldiers as well as during pre-trial detention..”

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel states that over a 1000 complaints of torture have been submitted but not a single complaint has led to a criminal investigation, let alone a trial or a conviction. Israeli law has never criminalized torture and whilst Israel is a signatory to the UN Conventions Against Torture it insists that it doesn't apply to Palestinians. United Nations funded Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture for Occupied Palestinian Territory, in 2014, treated 845 Palestinian victims of torture including 317 women and 135 children.

Corporate Complicity - HP

Hewlett Packard provides the essential IT services and infrastructure that enable the Israeli Prison Service to function. Their prisons and interrogation centres where Palestinian children are caged and tortured are powered by HP.

In 2012 HP provided the central servers for the operational system of the Israeli prison service ("Tzohar") and its on-going maintenance. In a contract worth $35 million, HP has also executed a project for e-mail storage and archive for the Israeli prison service.

HP developed the Kidma information system for the Israeli Prison Service which includes the prisoners management system and intelligence subs systems, helping the occupation keep illegal records on Palestinians it has abducted and their families.

Please join us to demand HP end its complicity in the torture and caging of Palestinian children; and demand freedom for the children; and freedom for all Palestinian political prisoners.

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"Everywhere we went (in Gaza) the same question was on every body's lips - 'You are here but where are the Arabs?' One little girl said to me 'where is this Arab world that they teach us about in school? Where is this Ummah that they talk to us about on Fridays? Why did they leave us alone?'. That's what she said to me, with tears in her eyes 'why did they leave us alone?' I had to turn my face away from her when she said it, and I'm not an Arab, I had to turn away.. I couldn't face her in the face of such a question.."